


Scaffolding

by aeli_kindara



Series: Scaffolding 'Verse [1]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Lyall Lupin's A+ Parenting, M/M, Marauders, Marauders' Era
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-19
Updated: 2017-12-19
Packaged: 2019-02-17 00:11:14
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,185
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13065072
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aeli_kindara/pseuds/aeli_kindara
Summary: Fifth year, Hogwarts. Sirius has just been disowned by his parents, and gotten himself and his friends drunk on Firewhiskey to celebrate. Remus, predictably enough, is stone cold sober.





	Scaffolding

**Author's Note:**

> This fic lives in a the Study of Wild Things 'Verse, where you can find some more backstory, but it should function fine on its own. Contains references to alcoholism and child abuse (expanded on in the end notes).

“Mmph,” Sirius mutters, letting his head roll back against the side of the bed. “Moony. Moooooony.”

“Yes?” asks Remus, and Sirius can tell he’s a little cross. Even though he tries to hide it.

“Moony, they all fell asleep. You have to entertain me now.” He gestures dramatically, points at Remus. “ _Go._ ”

“I’m sorry, Sirius,” Remus replies, a little waspishly. “I’m not very entertaining.”

“You’re really not,” Sirius tells him sternly. “You’re not a very good friend. Here I am, celebrating my emanci — ‘mancipation, and you won’t even get drunk with me.”

Remus sighs. “It’s not like I haven’t _tried._ ”

“No,” Sirius sighs, “you put away half the bottle, didn’t you? You and your stupid werewolf metab — metab —”

“Metabolism,” Remus supplies.

“ _That._ ” Sirius reaches out and smushes Remus’s nose, because it seems like the thing to do. “My mum said I could drop dead, you know. For all she cares. And instead of getting wasted like any respectable human being, you just sit over there with your metabowhatsit and your precious little stick up your ass and frown and tell me I’m being irresponsible.”

“I didn’t say anything like that,” Remus protests.

“You’re _thinking_ it,” Sirius tells him with a scowl. “I can _hear_ you thinking it.”

Remus looks down, and says nothing.

“‘Course,” Sirius, continues, lying back and studying the ceiling. It’s a lovely ceiling. “‘Course, _I’m_ being a horrible selfish git, aren’t I?” Remus begins to demur, but Sirius talks over him, loudly. “D’you think I forgot? D’you think I don’t think about it, every _damn_ day?”

Remus stares at him in open-mouthed surprise.

“Your dad,” Sirius explains. “Did _you_ forget? The one who _actually_ wants you dead?”

“Sirius,” Remus starts.

“You can’t deny it,” Sirius continues, belligerent. “Don’t try. You told me. You meant it.”

A silence stretches between them. “I wasn’t going to deny it,” Remus says at last.

“Good,” Sirius tells him, tipping up the bottle again. He coughs at the sting of the firewhiskey going down. “Denial is for morons. Did he ever try?”

“He petitioned the Ministry,” Remus says faintly. “You can, you know. If both parents are in agreement they have the right to end the life of a child who’s been bitten. It’s in the law books.”

“But they said no?” Remus’s face is wobbling oddly. Sirius should tell him to stop wobbling his face.

“My mum withdrew her name from the petition at the last minute. Otherwise it would have gone through. It’s the law.”

“How do they do it?”

Remus lets out a slow breath. “The parents can turn the afflicted child over to the Ministry if they want, or do it themselves. Beheading’s the preferred option.”

Sirius studies him for a minute. Remus’s nose is too big, and he has funny ears, and a face that scrunches up a little when he’s anxious. Sirius likes Remus’s head. He’d like for him to keep it.

“This is your problem,” he declares. “You can sit there and talk about how your own dad wants to _behead_ you, like it’s the weather or something, but you can’t get drunk. You’re like a… repression.”

“A repression?” Remus repeats, his mouth quirking faintly.

“A repression something,” Sirius tells him firmly. “Repression bot. It’s all you do. Repress repress repress.”

“Not _all_ I do,” Remus mutters.

Sirius glares at him, which makes him feel a little dizzy. “I like your head,” he declares.

“I thought my nose was too big.”

It is. “Who told you that? They’re a moron,” Sirius says. “Your nose is _perfect_.”

\---

It’s a long time later, when Remus is sure Sirius is asleep, that he says: “He did, once. Try." 

He glances down at Sirius, just to be sure he’s really asleep, and jumps so hard he knocks over his bottle of firewhiskey. Sirius’s eyes are open, watching him. “Moony,” he says, “you’re a spaz.”

“Yes, well,” says Remus, and stops. He has no idea what to say, no idea how to respond to this utter imbalance — he’s supposed to be talking into deaf ears, to his passed out drunk friend in the middle of the night, _not_ to a real person with real eyes that are really focusing on him _right now._

“When?” says Sirius after a moment, still watching him, expression unchanging.

Remus lets out a breath. “Summer before second year.”

Something crosses Sirius’s face, some kind of shadow that Remus can’t identify. He turns facedown and mumbles, “Fuck,” into his pillow.

“My mum tried to stop him,” Remus says, because somehow he can’t _not_ , now that it’s halfway out. He’s never told anyone, not a soul, not even Dumbledore. And it’s years ago now and shouldn’t matter. But it does. “It was the morning after the full moon, I was passed out, but her screaming woke me up. She was trying to get between us, trying to get him to stop, pleading.”

Sirius doesn’t say anything, but he turns his head enough to fix Remus with one blue eye, gleaming past the swell of the pillow.

“He pushed past her,” Remus says, the words spilling out now, “and she… fell. There was blood. The ax must have clipped her head, not enough to really hurt her, but I saw and I thought… it doesn’t matter, anyway. She’s all right now.”

He stops, and after a moment, Sirius lifts his head to glare at him. “What, that’s it? What _happened_ , you prat?”

Remus blinks. It takes him a moment to comprehend Sirius’s question — when he thinks of that morning, he thinks of his mother on the floor, blood on her temple, and birds singing, incongruously, outside. “Oh. I took the ax.”

“You took the ax,” Sirius repeats flatly. “What, like in the frontal lobe, because I don’t understand a _goddamn thing you’re saying, you lunatic,_ and that might explain a lot —”

“No,” Remus interrupts. “I’m sorry, that was unclear. I mean I took the ax away.”

“You,” says Sirius, and then stops, at an apparent loss for words.

“Took the ax away,” Remus provides, feeling oddly light-headed.

“Moony,” says Sirius, staring. “Your dad is a full-grown wizard. He used to be an _Auror._ You would have been — _twelve_ , and I _know_ how you are in the mornings, you couldn’t — you couldn’t pick up a knut from the ground, morning after a full moon.”

Remus shrugs. “Werewolf thing,” he says.

Sirius stares.

Finally, Remus sighs, and drags a hand through his hair. “Look, I — I don’t try to show it off, all right? And it’s not like it’s _pleasant_ to do, really anything at all, after the full moon.”

“Hurts like fuck, you mean,” Sirius interrupts.

“If you like,” Remus allows.

“Moony,” says Sirius vaguely. “Look, I don’t mean to — but are you _sure_ this wasn’t a, a dream or something? I mean, you can get pretty out of it those mornings, and I’m sure your dad wouldn’t —”

Something in Remus snaps.

Suddenly, he’s tired of being Remus fucking Lupin, all yield, all mild-mannered good student, all teacher’s pet. He’s tired of being one thing for a month and another for a single night. He’s tired of pretending he doesn’t get angry, doesn’t hurt, doesn’t want to _fucking kill_ his dad for what he’s done. He’s tired of Sirius expecting him to just sit there with his ink-blotched hands and his fraying jumpers and never _do anything._

He’s tired of being a repression, whatever the fuck that means.

There’s not really time to think through how he does it. One moment, he’s sitting cross-legged, shoulders hunched in on himself, fiddling with the neck of the firewhiskey bottle. The next he has Sirius pinned, arms wrenched behind his back. Sirius gives a surprised yelp and struggles against his grip, but Remus tightens his hold on Sirius’s wrists.

“I’m a werewolf, Sirius,” he says softly, in a voice that sounds even deadlier than he intended. “Not a house pet.”

“Get off me,” Sirius snarls, face pressed against the carpet. “ _Moony_ —” He’s twisting in Remus’s grip, but can’t get away, and after a moment, he stills.

Remus releases him, backing off. The carpet’s texture is imprinted in Sirius’s face. He glares for a moment, then launches himself at Remus.

This is what he’s been wanting, of course. Wanting all day, ever since opening the owl from his parents, and maybe before — it’s not like he didn’t know it was coming. He would probably have beaten up Snape earlier if he could find him, Remus knows. And James is normally good for a little roughhousing, but with everything… well, Sirius needs James to be his brother just now, and James is, weirdly enough, stepping up to the plate.

That leaves Remus.

The breath leaves his chest in a great _ooph_ when Sirius hits him. He could grip Sirius’s arms and immobilize him, pin him to the floor again, but he doesn’t really want to. Sirius’s fist is ramming into his belly, and Remus wants to give him this fight, just this once. To hit back.

So he does. He doesn’t lose control — measures his blows, keeps them in check. And Sirius is certainly more experienced at this than he is, can be a slippery little fucker, can twist around and catch Remus in a headlock that Remus wouldn’t have guessed was there. Only, Remus can break the headlock, just about as easy as anything, and land a blow on Sirius’s ribs that will leave him aching for days.

He tries to avoid marking Sirius’s face. Sirius is making no similar effort with him, fighting with an all out fury. It’s a miracle, really, that they haven’t woken James and Peter, but it’s not that _loud_ , really, just an intense, silent scuffle, punctuated only by Sirius’s occasional curse. He’s got Remus on his back now, but Remus throws him effortlessly, lands another punch, and pins Sirius.

Sirius bites him.

For some reason, this is the final straw. Remus is on his feet, hauling Sirius up by the front of his robes, and then hurling his friend back against the wall. He hears Sirius’s head crack painfully on the stones, but can’t quite bring himself to care, because he’s there, one arm across Sirius’s throat and the other pinning his wrists to his chest, blood dripping from his nose and a snarl on his face.

Sirius struggles for a minute, then goes limp. Remus holds him there for a heartbeat longer, then steps back. Sirius sags against the wall, breathing hard, and watching him with something strange and dark and fierce in his eyes.

Then he says “ _Fuck_ ” again, and slides down to the floor.

Remus’s heart seizes with worry. “Are you all right?” he asks quietly, crouching in front of Sirius. “I’m sorry, I tried not to hurt you —”

But Sirius is laughing softly, eyes half shut. “Moony,” he says, “you’re such a fucking idiot. And your nose is bleeding. You could’ve knocked me out anytime you liked, couldn’t you? You could’ve picked me up and dropped me out the window and I wouldn’t be able to do anything about it.”

“Well,” says Remus, “yes, probably. But it’s like I said. It’s a werewolf thing.”

“Damn,” says Sirius. “Moony, you really — that was _really good._ You should fight people more often.”

Remus glances away. “Doesn’t seem very fair,” he says. “Besides, I don’t much like it.”

Sirius laughs softly. “Liar. You _loved_ that.”

Remus snorts. “Perhaps a little.”

“You loved it with every little bone in your werewolf body,” Sirius informs him. “I told you you were a repression.”

“That’s not a word, Sirius. At least, not how you’re using it.”

“Don’t care,” Sirius replies with a yawn. “So. Your dad tried to kill you when you were twelve, and almost killed your mum instead, so you woke up from a half coma beaten to smithereens and beat a bloody Auror in hand-to-hand combat, because you have freakish werewolf strength, and you never saw fit to mention any of this to the rest of us when we asked about your summer hols.”

Remus shrugs, but the discomfort he expects doesn’t come. “You didn’t know at the time.”

Sirius snorts. “Yes. And now that we do, you’re always _so_ forthcoming.”

Remus shrugs again, helplessly. “There’s not much to _tell_. I guess it’s been a bit of a truce since then. We mostly ignore each other.”

“You should ditch ‘em,” Sirius tells him, with an expansive gesture. “Join the club. It’s great.”

“You know I can’t,” says Remus.

“Sure you can!” Sirius declares. “All it takes is balls, really. I’m the expert, I can help you out!”

“No,” says Remus, softly, almost wishing he could pretend. “I _can’t_.”

\---

“No,” says Remus, softly, “I _can’t._ ”

There’s something strange in his expression, an odd tenderness, like he’s afraid of hurting Sirius, and knows he can’t avoid it. It makes Sirius nervous. “Why not, then?” he demands.

Remus is watching him in that way he does when he’s about to break Sirius’s fucking heart. “Because,” he says, “the rules aren’t the same for me. If I reject my parents before I reach majority, or if they reject me, I automatically become a ward of the state.”

“And?” Sirius asks, knowing the worst is yet to come. “What then?”

“I’m not sure,” Remus says. “Execution, probably. Maybe Azkaban if I’m lucky. I’ve heard that the Department for the Disposal of Dangerous Magical Creatures has a research arm, so I could always end up there.”

Sirius closes his eyes. “You,” he says, then stops, and tries again. “You always look the same, you know, when you’re about to make me fucking cry.”

“I’m sorry,” Remus says, because that’s what Remus says. “I don’t do it on purpose.”

“No,” Sirius agrees tiredly. “You just live with this shit every day, and don’t bother the rest of us with it until I start doing stupid shit like making you hit me, and even then you feel bad about it. Moony.” He reaches out blindly, not opening his eyes, and puts his hand on Remus’s face. There’s still blood on it, from his nose.

“Yes?” Remus replies, and Sirius can feel his mouth curve in a hint of a smile.

“Moony,” Sirius repeats, because it seems important. “You know I’d — you know we’d fucking blow up the Ministry before we let them touch you.”

There’s a silence, that goes on so long that Sirius opens his eyes again, just to make sure Remus is still there. Which is stupid, of course, he has his hand on on Remus’s face, he’d know if he weren’t there. Remus is watching him with those strange soft eyes, but they’re a little different, and Sirius realizes suddenly that he has managed, quite by accident, to reach out and break _Remus’s_ heart, instead of the other way around.

“Yeah,” says Remus finally, looking down and then up again, almost shyly, at Sirius. “I know.”

And there’s something — it’s something about his face, and his _eyes,_ that strange look in them, and the scar that runs nearly through the right one. Something about his hair, which is getting too long, and already shows a couple threads of silver if you know where to look for them (and Sirius does). Something about — well, about _Moony_ , bloody unflappable Moony with his jumpers and his books and that incalculable, iron strength. Not just the kind that it takes to beat Sirius up — well, that too, but — there’s this _thing_ about Remus, that you would never know from looking at him, but where he could weather any bloody thing you thought to throw at him, and brew you a cup of tea when you’re done.

Sometimes Sirius feels like a fucking maelstrom of pain and fury, like a bottled up _thing_ that needs to get out, that needs to _do_ something about all the _fucking shit_ in the world. Remus isn’t like that. Remus takes all the shit and says _all right, I see what you’re trying to do there_ , and then he just fucking endures. Sirius used to think it was cowardly. It isn’t. It’s the bravest fucking thing he’s ever seen.

And — well, besides that, there are other things. Like the way the stubble on Remus’s cheek feels under Sirius’s hand, and the image in his head of a wolf loping through a snowy forest, strong and intent and free.

All in all, there’s really nothing else he can do about it, so he meets Remus’s eyes and carefully, carefully leans forward, and kisses him.

He can taste Remus’s blood. Remus’s mouth parts, slightly, and a spark of tension runs through him. His body is suddenly hard, rigid, and Sirius pulls away.

“Um,” says Remus, staring. Sirius can still taste his blood on his own lips.

“Padfoot,” says Remus, “you’re drunk.”

“I’m not,” Sirius starts, and then reality hits him like a bludger. He’s a fucking idiot, and Remus doesn’t want this — he’s gone and ruined their friendship, like a _fucking_ idiot, unless he can —

“Ahaha,” he says, not very convincingly. “Yes. Very drunk. Inexplicable behavior. Forget this ever happened, shall we?”

Remus is still staring. “All right,” he says slowly.

And it is, Sirius realizes with a vast wave of relief. It is, because this is Remus, and Remus _always_ forgives him. He’s forgiven far worse things, really — really, Sirius thinks hysterically, thank _fucking_ God for Remus J. Lupin.

“Well,” says Sirius, too loudly. “Good night!”

“Are you going to,” says Remus. “You have a bed, you know.”

“Yes,” says Sirius, “yes, jolly good, so do you, your own bed, you know. Beds, very —”

“Padfoot,” Remus interrupts him, and then Remus is lifting him bodily, and the closeness of him is doing something strange to Sirius’s brain. Then Remus is carrying him across the room, and depositing him in his bed, leaning down, and Sirius’s brain is doing _very_ funny things, as are his lungs and his heart.

Only then Remus has let him go and is withdrawing, standing back. “Right,” he says. “Night, Sirius.”

“Good night,” says Sirius, bravely.

“Right,” says Remus again, and disappears into his own four-poster.

 _Fuck_ , Sirius thinks, staring again at the ceiling.

He is so, so screwed.

\---

Remus stares at the ceiling.

He can still taste blood at the back of his throat, but it doesn’t seem to matter much. He can also still feel Sirius’s lips on his own, and that is by far the more critical matter. It’s not that — Sirius is _like_ that, he has no concept of personal space, constantly licking people and being generally invasive and disgusting, as if he’s a dog full-time. He’s probably stuck his tongue in _all_ their mouths at one point or another, as a dog or a human or both, and yet… There’s something different this time, Sirius kissing him, Sirius who has just lost his family and sworn up and down he doesn’t need one; Sirius who has bloodied his nose and vowed to burn down the whole world before he lets anyone else hurt Remus. Sirius who looked at him with that strange, quiet intensity, so unlike his habitual carefree arrogance, and…

 _He’s just drunk,_ Remus tells himself. _He’s acting this way because he’s drunk._ But he knows it’s a lie. Remus has seen more than his share of drunkenness, even if it’s a state he can’t penetrate, can’t comprehend. For the longest time, he tried to convince himself his dad was _just drunk_ , that he couldn’t really hate Remus so much, be so unwilling to look at him. He _remembers_ his dad, back before the bite, a loving, laughing, god-like figure pushing him in the backyard swing, chanting nursery rhymes in an off-key voice at bedtime. It’s hard to recognize that man in the Lyall Lupin of today. Remus _knows_ what drinking does to a person, as well as anyone who doesn’t feel its effects can. It can strip a man down to his barest, ugliest essentials, but it can’t create things that aren’t already there.

That doesn’t mean Sirius’s behavior isn’t… misplaced. Some cocktail of alcohol and hormones and emotion. He has just lost his family, after all, and Remus knows Sirius feels things deeply, more deeply than he’d ever admit; remembers Sirius shaking and punching the wall when they were thirteen. Remus can’t imagine feeling things like that. Everything he thinks and feels and says is carefully observed, monitored; he watches his own behavior like a clinical analyst. It’s the fear of the wolf, partly, but it’s also just how he _is_ , how he would be no matter what. Sirius is different. He only thinks about his actions when forced to, and even then, only after the fact.

Remus wonders if he’ll think about this one.

\---

Sirius can’t _stop_ thinking about it.

It’s true, in a way, what Remus thinks of him. He’s not one for analyzing his impulses — tends to follow them and sort out the consequences later. Only, the consequences of _this_ one are dizzying in their ramifications.

For one, it seems to have changed everything in the way he looks at Remus. Or rather, it’s changed nothing, just made him aware of some things he’d always ignored, like the way his eyes always stray to Remus in class, take in tiny details, like the ink-stained hangnail on his thumb, and the curl of his hair on the back of his neck. Other things, too, though: his face in profile, the way he bites his lip when he’s thinking, the trace of faint scars across his cheek. And, well, the fall of his jumper across his slim chest, the tight, strong muscles of his arms; the shape of him, from a distance, familiar and unmistakable, crossing a courtyard or coming up the stairs. He keeps his head down, Remus does, and his back a little hunched, but there’s no missing the strength in those limbs, once you know it’s there.

And — well, all right, there are things that occupy Sirius’s mind more than others, like Remus’s hands, and his mouth, and the flash of a hipbone as he shoulders his bag and his shirt hitches up at the side.

He doesn’t think about Remus naked. Remus naked is Remus alone, hunched and shivering and trying not to scream as the transformation rips through him; or else, Remus sprawled on a floor, bloody and beaten, his skin like wax paper and dark shadows ringing his eyes.

Remus has never figured out, Sirius thinks, that he’s the most important one of all of them. That without Remus, any one of Sirius’s fights with James might have turned sour and cold, just like Sirius’s relationship with his real brother. It’s Remus they rally around, all three of them. The full moon every month is when their idiotic teenage problems turn trivial, when they’re _needed_ and powerful.

It’s probably been easy, Sirius thinks, to dismiss — whatever this is — as just that, just the fierce protective circle they form around Remus, all three of them, at the drop of a hat. But it’s not. It’s something else entirely.

It’s something deep and growling and _animal_ inside of him, this urge to possess, to protect, to… to touch and to know. He finds himself touching his mouth often these days, as if he could bring back that instant of recognition. He watches Remus, and wonders.

 _This is a stupid idea_ , he tells himself. Remus has never shown any hint of interest in — in men. Not that he’s seemed very interested in women, either; not that _Sirius_ has ever shown any interest in men.

Still, he touches his mouth, and he wonders.

\---

Sirius has been watching him.

The knowledge prickles oddly in Remus’s chest. He’s been perfectly willing to let it lie — perfectly determined. But now Sirius keeps _watching_ him, and his hand keeps straying unconsciously to his lips, until he catches Remus looking back and drops it quickly.

If Sirius is confused about his sexual orientation or something, it would be kind of him to leave Remus out of it.

This is what he thinks to himself, grumpily, as he scribbles notes in History of Magic. It’s been over an hour since Sirius did even a credible imitation of a student; he’s just been sitting there, nibbling his quill and watching Remus. Which — all right, there are dozens of girls in the school who’d be happy to have Sirius watching them like this, and it’s not like Remus has _missed_ how painfully handsome his friend is, with that fall of dark, too-long hair, those aristocratically arched eyebrows, those tan arms, that _damn_ mouth — but he’s _not_ a girl, damn it. And if Sirius has decided to suddenly treat him as one, he’d have appreciated some fucking warning.

It doesn’t help, of course, that tonight’s the full moon. It doesn’t help that he can already feel the pull of it in his blood, like the Earth’s own tides. He knows he gets more irritable, this time of the month; he hasn’t slept properly for several nights now. His skin is itchy, presaging fur.

They have a routine, by now. Pomfrey escorts Remus to the Whomping Willow, as she always has. Depending on the night — sunset, moonrise, dinner, other engagements — his friends might follow soon after, or even be waiting in the tunnel. Other times, they don’t arrive in the Shack until it’s nearly time; once or twice, they’ve missed the transformation entirely. That’s always a bit of a relief to Remus, if he’s honest. He hates them seeing him like that, helpless and screaming, as his bones crack and shift. He dreads it every month, almost as much as the transformation itself.

Tonight, he thinks, he might have some luck. It’s nearly the solstice, after all; darkness falls early, and while he won’t fully transform until moonrise, something about the dying of the sunlight makes him wilder, edgier, as if caught between one state and the next. His friends will have to put in an appearance at dinner; he might be done, by the time they arrive.

He paces the floor of the Shack and waits.

This is almost the worst part of it. Naked, exposed, skin twitching with the itch of impending change. Waiting, waiting, for the moon, for his friends. He wants to sit down, sometimes, to curl up into a ball in the corner, but the restless energy that fills him needs an outlet.

They’re strange, these in-between-times. He wants to howl his frustration, but doesn’t yet know how.

Something changes.

It’s not the transformation yet, not quite — a thrumming in his chest, his bones, his blood. Anticipation. He steps to the window and peers out through a crack between the boards just as the first sliver of the moon appears beyond the distant crag above Hogsmeade.

Pain spears Remus like a knife to the gut.

He doubles over, gasping. But it’s just the opening salvo; not the true change, not yet. He braces himself again.

“Remus?” Sirius’s voice, from the next room. “I didn’t smell wolf yet, are you still —”

The pale moon of Sirius’s face swims into view, hazy with pain, as Remus turns his head, sniffing the air, half animal. The smell of dog lingers on him, as if he’s just straightened back into human form. It’s happening, he knows, the shift from human senses to those of a wolf.

He opens his mouth to tell Sirius to turn back, now, but what comes out instead is a scream. He’s shifting now in earnest, bones breaking, back arching, muscles and tendons stretching and clenching. He convulses, screaming again, and gets one last look at Sirius’s stricken face before he’s a dog again, pacing, waiting.

Then Remus loses all sense of the world around him for a while.

When it drifts back into focus, Padfoot is snuffling at his ear. But there’s something on the air still, the scent of human boy. The still-human part of Remus’s brain whispers, _Sirius_.

 _Human_. The wolf snarls, baring its teeth. There’s something human about this dog, something that makes the wolf angry. The dog stiffens at the sound, ears flattening against its head, and takes a step back.

 _Not human,_ Remus tries to tell the wolf. _Pack. He’s pack._

The wolf rises, snarl deepening to a growl. He’s never turned on Sirius like this before, Remus thinks in panic, trying to still his limbs, trying to _stop_ . _Run,_ he thinks at Sirius, _please, RUN!_

The wolf launches himself.

Sirius has time for a single startled yelp before he’s bowled over. The wolf — Remus — is straddling him, growling low, jaws mere inches from his throat. The dog stares back, eyes wide, too much of Sirius in them, and for a desperate moment Remus thinks he’s about to lose his throat.

Then Sirius’s ears flatten against his head, and he tucks his tail between his legs.

The wolf growls again, but this one is pleased, Remus can tell. He is the alpha — the leader of his pack. A confused surge of triumph and relief courses through him as the wolf steps back. Sirius remains there for a moment, belly exposed, before scrambling to his feet.

 _I’m sorry,_ Remus thinks to him. _I’m SORRY._

Padfoot regards him warily for a wild moment, then jumps, stiff-legged, and drops into a play bow.

With a joyful bark, the wolf joins in.

\---

“Mmph,” says Sirius. “You play _rough_.”

Remus blinks. Morning light shafts through the gaps in the Shrieking Shack’s boards. His body is a mass of pain, and Sirius’s chin seems to be poking into his side.

“Um,” says Remus.

“I mean,” Sirius adds quickly, “not that I’m _complaining_ , I’m just, ah, not completely sure I can _move_.”

Remus groans and turns onto his back, which results in a very close call with an awkward encounter between Sirius’s face and Remus’s rather private bits. Sirius sits up sharply, and lets out an involuntary groan.

“Um,” says Remus. “You have a rather large — um. Splinter. In your paw. I mean, your hand.”

Sirius looks down, and yelps. It’s more of a _log_ , really. It’s impressive. He gropes for his wand.

Remus’s wand is upstairs, with his clothes. Damn Sirius for being able to keep his clothes when he transforms. “Here,” Remus says, “let me,” and Sirius passes him the wand with another groan of pain.

“Here,” says Remus, taking Sirius’s hand gently in his own, and aligning it so the splinter will come out with a minimum of further damage. “ _Accio_ splinter,” he says, and Sirius yelps, but it slides out and into Remus’s waiting palm. He mutters another quick charm, and the skin heals behind it.

“Thanks,” says Sirius, flexing his hand. “ _Ow._ You are not a kind man, Remus Lupin.”

“I’m sorry,” Remus says automatically. “Where are James and Peter?”

“Filch,” Sirius responds, with a comprehensive gesture. “I felt kind of bad ditching them, but I figured one of us should be here, right?”

“Ah,” says Remus. “Um. I’m going to go put clothes on, I think.”

“Thrill me, why don’t you,” Sirius quips, and Remus climbs to his feet with a vague feeling of relief.

\---

Things get back to normal after that, or as normal as they ever are when you live with Sirius Black. He’s stopped looking at Remus like that, at least, which is a relief; gone back to treating him like just another boy in the boys’ club. Exactly like Remus likes it. Well — sort of.

It’s just that, given the space, and the time, to think about it, he rather — oh, bollocks. He really rather liked Sirius kissing him. Damn it all.

\---

Sirius has decided, with an iron determination that surprises even him, that he is _not_ going to let things be weird with Remus.

He thinks James had started to notice, which is simply unacceptable. And, well, that full moon cleared things up a little. Whether or not Remus is willing to acknowledge it, he thinks they both know, on some level, what that was about. It’s not that Remus has control of the wolf, but there’s a relationship. Remus has said so, even, talked about his mental state affecting the wolf’s. It’s clear enough. Human Remus will never speak of it again. Wolf Remus will put Sirius in his place.

Sometimes, selfishly, Sirius is glad he has the wolf Remus, to give him some inkling of what’s on human Remus’s mind.

Anyway, the point — the point is, Remus wants him to fuck off, so he’ll fuck off. Simple.

It’s not remotely simple.

\---

Still — he manages it.

He manages it so well that sometimes that night seems like a fever dream. He embarks on an intense and blissfully mindless entanglement with Maddy Newton, in Hufflepuff, that lasts him for most of the rest of fifth year, and drops her unceremoniously right in time for exams. Then comes Esmerelda Hastings, in Ravenclaw, a drama queen if ever there was one, and Sirius flatters himself that the rumors she spreads about him after their two weeks of absurdity that September heighten his mystique rather than dampening it. From there it’s back to the well of Hufflepuff — and yes, James mocks him about that one, which is fair, but hell, Sirius can enjoy himself if he wants to.

At some point Peter makes a joke about collecting all the Houses, so Sirius sets his sights on a Slytherin. He finds he actually likes Michelle Triquet better than any girl he’s met to date — she’s got a wicked sense of humor and doesn’t give a shit about politics or, really, Sirius — but she doesn’t keep him around long, which honestly just makes him admire her all the more.

After that, he’s left with the surprising holdout of Gryffindor.

“It’s not surprising,” Peter says logically. “They all know you too well to be remotely interested.”

Which, all right, maybe he has a point. Sirius dares a look at Remus as he says it, but Remus just turns a page in his book, apparently unconcerned. Sirius wonders if Remus thinks knowing him is a point against him. It’s a stupid thought.

He’s about at the point of wondering whether a pursuit of Lily Evans would torpedo his friendship with James forever or prompt a surprise about-face in favor of the less imbecilic of the Black-Potter duo when the whole Darius Smoot thing happens.

And, God, _that’s_ embarrassing, or would be if anyone ever found out: that Sirius has gotten it on with a guy named _Darius Smoot._ He’s Keeper on the Quidditch team that year, kind of a weird, big guy who keeps to himself, and Sirius has never really thought much about him at all until one day they’re the only ones in the showers and then there’s this _look_ that happens and then Sirius is receiving, frankly, the best head of his life, and that’s okay by him.

That goes on for almost two months, quiet and frantic and _really, really_ good, fuck, Sirius likes girls but guys are, are something else entirely, something that melts his limbs and short-circuits his brain and does awesome things to the rest of him, too. And —

Well. Okay.

When Sirius kissed Remus, he didn’t know about all this. Sure, he’d — noticed, maybe, that he looked at guys as well as girls, that they seemed interesting and attractive and worth touching maybe, but he’d never _done_ it. Now he has, and every time Smoot’s got him pinned up against the shower tile or down on his knees in a broom cupboard, Sirius can’t help but imagine Remus, compare. Remus is slimmer than Smoot is, but just as tall. Remus has bigger hands, nimbler fingers, and — mm — just thinking about those fingers is enough to make him hard in class sometimes. Remus would be cautious where Smoot is abrupt; Remus would need persuading, convincing, but if Sirius could tease it out of him — _God,_ Remus has this secret streak of dominance that plays a starring role in all of Sirius’s fantasies, reduces him to an incoherent, trembling mess.

Smoot seems to like that mess well enough. And that’s fine, it’s all fine, until one day things end rather abruptly when they’re getting hot and heavy in the locker room and there’s a loud clatter from the next room and Smoot bellows, “ _What do you think you’re doing, you freak!”_ and hauls off and punches him.

Sirius has never been one to _take_ that lying down, so it’s only after a vicious, half-naked scuffle — which Sirius wins handily, thank you very much — that they realize it was just a broom that fell over, and no one was ever there to catch them at all.

Still, it puts a damper on things, and Smoot seems to realize it. He blushes a lot, and avoids Sirius’s eye at practice, and it gets Sirius thinking about the whole gay thing, or bisexual thing, whatever you want to call it; and about the whole coming out thing; and about how his parents are already permanently disappointed in him regardless, and maybe that makes things easier than they are for Smoot.

It seems so dumb, though. Coming out. What’s he supposed to do, walk into the dormitory one day and announce, “So you know, I like boys as well as girls, carry on”? It’s embarrassing and stupid, and there’s no point to it, is there, and besides, Remus — well, Remus, presumably, already knows.

Sirius slips a little, that spring.

He’s been doing so well at the not making things weird that he maybe rests on his laurels, a bit. Maybe he lets those private thoughts about Remus spill over too much into the patterns of his gaze, the look on his face when he’s thinking about his friend. It’s not on purpose. It’s really not. But it must have gone pretty far for James to one day pull up short in the middle of explaining a difficult Transfiguration essay to say, “Would you two just _talk_ about it already?”

Sirius blinks. It takes him a minute to realize who James is talking about. Then Peter pipes up, “Yeah, _seriously.”_

Okay. If things have gotten _that_ bad, he really does need to do something about it. He darts a wary glance at Remus, who’s looking fixedly at the ceiling like a cat who’s obsessed with an invisible fly.

“Oh for the love of,” says James, and snaps his Transfiguration book shut and storms out of the dormitory. Peter lets out a startled squeak, and quickly follows in his wake.

“Um,” says Sirius.

Remus, at last, looks away from the ceiling. Instead, he studies his hands, which isn’t very fair of him, seeing as Sirius has some documented feelings regarding Remus’s hands. “I can’t say I was expecting that,” he says, “but I’m not sure they’re wrong.”

Sirius swallows. “Oh,” he says, intelligently.

Remus looks at him, sidelong, and holds the gaze. Someday, Sirius will work out why Remus is far better at guilting him into speech than his own parents ever were.

“I’ve been fucking Darius Smoot,” he says in a rush. “Or,” he adds, in strict interests of truth-telling, “more specifically, he’s been fucking me.”

Remus blinks. “Oh,” he says. Then, tentatively: “Congratulations?”

“We stopped,” says Sirius. “He punched me.”

Remus seems to consider this carefully. “Are you all right,” he says at last, but _Did you deserve it_ is written in every margin of the words.

“I did _not_ start it,” says Sirius vehemently. “A broom did. But yes. I’m fine.”

“And is that why,” Remus starts. He swallows. “Uh.”

“I’m sorry I kissed you,” says Sirius.

It comes out in a sudden convulsion, like vomit he’s been holding in for more than a year. It leaves him feeling miserable and hollow and not at all better. He wraps his arms around his chest and looks at the wall.

The thing is, he’s not sorry. He’s not sorry, and he’ll never be sorry, and he’ll want to be kissing Remus until the day he dies. And it’s _not fair_ , not even a little bit, and for a moment he thinks he’s about to start crying, which would be just about the worst thing, so instead he slams a fist against his own leg. _Shut up,_ he tells himself savagely. _Don’t — don’t._

Remus is watching him closely, a worried line between his eyebrows. He looks a little ill himself, probably at the concept of Sirius wanting to kiss him again, and he says, “It’s all right.” Then, with a forced, breathy little laugh: “After all, it’s not like you meant anything by it.”

And that — _that_ is the last thing Sirius expected to hear.

His first instinct is to agree. To laugh it off; of course not. But there’s something in Remus’s tone, something cracked and fragile and maybe already broken, that makes Sirius turn and stare and feel the vaguest, faintest, most treacherous stirrings of hope.

His voice, when he lets it out, is a croak. “Actually,” he says, and the word hangs between them, shining, revolving, some strange new magical thing. “Actually,” he tries again, “I did.”

Remus stares.

He stares like it’s the most confounding thing that’s ever come out of Sirius’s mouth. Stares like the Earth has stopped turning, like everyone is dead and it’s just him and Sirius and Sirius has just said the worst thing he’s ever heard, or maybe the best, but the longer he stares the more certain Sirius is that it’s really the worst. And then he keeps staring, and staring, until finally it breaks Sirius and he grinds out, words cracking and trembling and tumbling over each other, a truth that draws blood on its way out, a revelation: “Damn it, Moony, haven’t you figured out that I fucking love you?”

And Remus just keeps staring, and staring, and the whole damn world is going straight to hell.

\---

Remus does not remember much from his first transformation.

The things he does are mostly palimpsest: anguish experienced a hundred times over, until every iteration is the same. What’s different, he remembers, is that he didn’t know it yet. His mother and Dumbledore had been over it a hundred times with him, explaining everything: the new, reinforced room in the cellar, the reasons they couldn’t stay with him, that it would all be better in the morning. Remus remembers the door closing behind him, remembers wrapping himself in a blanket, because they’d left him one, and it seemed like the thing he should do. He remembers his mother standing by the door, all night, because she promised him he would; remembers hurling himself at her, time and again, until his tiny body was bruised and battered and her face was unrecognizable with tears.

It wasn’t better in the morning.

Sometimes, Remus has wished his father had done it. That night, or any of countless others; sometimes, he’s thought of doing it himself. There have been times when dread of the next full moon has made him shake with horror and crawl to the toilet to throw up, made his mind roar with dread and the desperate desire just to make it stop. He hasn’t, because he’s always known — has understood, in some ways even from that first morning — that his willingness to go on, to stand up straight and pretend things are okay, is all that keeps his mother from shattering utterly. It’s a strange thing for a child to know. There are times when the yawning, dizzying responsibility of it has been nearly as bad as the wolf itself.

His friends think that the Remus Lupin they know is the real one. Shaped, perhaps, by the wolf, but independent of it, preceding it. Essential. Sometimes he wishes desperately to believe them. But he knows himself. He knows that all he has built of himself, since almost before he can remember, is pure artifice — a flimsy scaffolding of a civilized, human boy over the gaping maw of darkness and chaos beneath. From his vague memories of Before, Remus sometimes wonders if he might have grown up loud and laughing, impulsive like his friends, rather than the tightly, carefully controlled person he is. It’s hard not to wish for it, but it’s hard to imagine it, too. There have never been any choices. He has done what he had to, to help his parents survive. If there was ever a Remus Lupin that wasn’t this manufactured person, this front he shows to the world, the wolf engulfed him long ago.

He tried, once, to explain this. Not to Sirius, or even James, but to Peter. There have been times he’s thought they should have a stronger bond than they do. After all, they’re both the afterthoughts — the quiet ones, the sidekicks to James and Sirius’s shining stars. And there is a shared understanding in that, and yet — it’s uncomplicated for Peter, he’s realized. Or complicated, perhaps, in a different way. Remus remembers looking around his dormitory that first day and thinking, _Mum talked about this, she talked about me going to Hogwarts and having a real life and making friends, so I need to make friends._ So he attempted a polite inquiry about their journey, and Sirius laughed and told him he was a plonker and they’d all been on the same train, hadn’t they, and Remus flushed and felt rather an idiot. But they seemed to welcome him anyway, perhaps because they found it amusing to have a little old lady around in the body of an eleven-year-old boy, or perhaps because mixed in with Sirius’s sarcasm and wicked grins is a streak of reckless generosity, and James for all his posturing and inanity is deeply, unerringly kind. Remus was grateful; is still grateful, though he’s never understood.

So — Peter. It was a strange conversation, in the midst of one of James’s many flights of Lily Evans-induced romance and despair. Peter, quiet for days, had asked Remus abruptly one evening in the common room what he thought about James and Lily, and then, after a fumbling “He seems rather enthralled with her” from Remus, what he thought James thought about Peter.

Remus blinked. “You’re his friend,” he ventured, after a moment.

“But not his best friend,” Peter insisted. “That’s Sirius. And someday he’ll have Lily. And you’re —” here he gave an incomprehensible gesture that could equally have meant _a werewolf_ or _boring and smell of books_ — “so what am I?”

Remus paused, considering, more than a little at sea. “You’re a Marauder,” he said at last. “All for one and one for all. Right?”

Peter snorted. “You really think they’ll think twice about me, once we’re out of here?”

“Of course they will,” Remus replied, taken aback, and suddenly, Peter sagged.

“I know,” he muttered. “I’m sorry. It’s just — it gets hard sometimes to know who you are, y’know?”

Remus considered this. “I’m not sure who I am, either,” he finally ventured, trying to gather the words to express what he meant, this thing that was always on his mind and never uttered. “In many ways, we’re all just a set of reactions to our circumstances, aren’t we?”

“Yeah,” said Peter, pushing his chair back impatiently. “Right.” And then he was slouching out of the room, storm clouds still heavy on his face.

That mood, whatever it had been, had cleared with time; but Remus never thought Peter had really heard what he’d said. Perhaps, for that matter, he’d never heard Peter. It hasn’t made him eager to launch into it again, though.

It’s only now, panicky, his mind a frozen storm of static, that he has to. Now, with Sirius staring at him out of those too wide, too real, too hurt and scared and strange and hopeful eyes.

“You can’t,” Remus objects. “You can’t possibly l — that.”

“Why not?” says Sirius, scowling, arms crossed defensively across his chest. He’s reverted, Remus realizes distantly, into confrontation; he’s scared and exposed. Remus should help him feel better. Only he can’t, because he has to disabuse Sirius of this bizarre notion, before it goes any further.

“Look,” says Sirius, disrupting his train of thought. He’s dangerously drawn in on himself now, eyes bright, cheeks flushed. “You don’t have to feel the same way. We can never speak of it again. I know it’s weird, and it probably freaks you out, but it’s not like — those Hufflepuff kids go around in the open, you know, it’s getting more accepted, and you’ve never seemed too interested in girls, and I just thought — I thought maybe —” He stops, just as abruptly, face aflame, his scowl deepening as if to compensate.

“They have names,” Remus says, delaying the inevitable. “The Hufflepuff kids. Bradley and Dawlish. And some people have been really cruel, they —”

“I _don’t care!_ ” Sirius half screams it. “I don’t care. Fine. You’re not — you know. You’re not anything, as far as I can tell, but — fine.”

“I’m not — not anything,” Remus says faintly. “It’s just — what’s the point, Sirius? I’m a werewolf. That’s all there is.”

“Got it,” says Sirius, sarcasm biting into his voice. “I’m a tragic werewolf, woe is me, no one can ever love me. Is that it?”

“ _No!_ ” Remus’s own voice is raised now, shocking them both. “Damn it, Sirius, it’s not — there’s nothing _here._ Don’t you see that by now? You think I’m this, this _person_ , but I’m _not._ It’s just the wolf, that’s all there is, and I’m just — I’m just the photo negative,” he invents wildly, knowing Sirius won’t understand the Muggle metaphor. “I’m just — whatever I’ve built around it, to contain it, and keep the fear at bay, and keep my mum believing she still has a son. Anything you think I am, whatever it is you think you _love_ , it’s all pretend. An act. That’s it. There’s _nothing here._ ”

There’s a long silence. Sirius stares at him, jaw working soundlessly, as if he’s unsure whether to yell or cry. Remus realizes, belatedly, that there are tears on his own face, that his nose is dangerously close to dribbling. He wipes it, humiliated, feeling like an idiot. He can’t remember the last time he cried.

“I didn’t think you were afraid of anything,” Sirius says finally, softly. Then, before Remus can formulate a response: “Whose fear is it, then, if there’s nothing there? Who’s building the walls?”

“No one who exists anymore,” Remus whispers. “A ghost. A child.” But even as he says it, he feels the lie in his words. He feels it as a stinging pain, and a roiling in his gut. He wants to turn away, but he can’t bring himself to move. There’s a horrible lump in his throat; more tears in his eyes. He closes them, feeling sick.

Then, Sirius’s hand on his face, cupping his jaw, thumbing away a tear. “I don’t believe you,” he says quietly. Lips press gently, briefly, against his forehead. “I don’t believe you,” says Sirius again, and Remus feels a breath stir the hair on the top of his head.

“I can’t,” he says in a strangled whisper. “Sirius, I _can’t._ ”

Then Sirius is holding him, awkwardly and yet not awkwardly, one arm around his shoulders and the other hand tangled in his hair, pressing him close against his chest. He doesn’t say anything, just holds him, and Remus is crying again, almost snuffling, with a distant sense that this is humiliating, and that he’s getting snot on Sirius’s shirt.

“This is,” he attempts thickly. “Do you know what you’re asking of me?”

“No,” says Sirius. “Tell me.”

Remus laughs, shakily. “I haven’t tried to be a person in _years_. Last time I was, I — I couldn’t function. Those first few years were _bad_ , Sirius. You don’t know how bad.”

“Tell me,” says Sirius again, thumb moving in slow circles on Remus’s scalp. It brushes the shell of his ear and sends an incongruous shiver down his spine. “I’m listening. Tell me.”

A strange stillness comes over him then. Gentled by Sirius’s touch, Remus still finds himself searching for words, for a way to explain it. But Sirius waits, not moving except for the calming rhythm of his fingers. Finally, Remus finds words.

“The first time,” he says, “I didn’t know it would hurt.”

There’s a pause, just the slightest hitch, in Sirius’s movement, before it resumes again. “You were five,” he says, and Remus nods against him.

“They’d gone over it all with me in detail,” he says. “My parents and Dumbledore. I _knew_ what would happen. My mum had even explained how she couldn’t be there with me, because I might not be in control of myself when I was a wolf, but she would be right outside the door. She was. She stayed. I think it took years off her life. Mine too, maybe, trying to get to her, but she kept her promise. She stayed. Do you know how terrible that must be, watching that happen to your child?”

It takes Sirius a moment to answer. “I know how terrible it is watching it happen to my best friend,” he says finally.

Remus’s gut lurches oddly. “She did everything she could,” he says. “She stayed. But she couldn’t warn me. How can you warn a five-year-old? There’s the pain, but then —” He stops, trying to think how to describe it. “The pain’s nothing, compared to the wolf.”

“I’ve seen it,” Sirius murmurs, and Remus knows he’s thinking of the mad times, when Remus flings himself against walls and rends his own flesh. But he hasn’t seen it, not at all.

“No,” he contradicts softly, “you haven’t. Do you ever — you feel like there is this tremendous amount of rage and pain and anger bottled up inside you, this tornado of it, and every outlet you have for it is so pitifully small compared to the magnitude of what you feel? Like you could throw yourself at the walls of Hogwarts and tear them down stone by stone and still not exhaust your fury?”

“Frequently,” Sirius admits, surprise not fully concealed in his voice.

“That’s the wolf,” says Remus. “That’s the wolf, only — all the battering and screaming and rending, that’s nothing on what’s inside. That’s what glaring at Snape in Potions class is to you, maybe, when you haven’t even had a chance to insult him, never mind hex him. The wolf could tear the throat out of every student at Hogwarts and still not exhaust more than a fraction of its fury. _That’s_ the worst part — feeling all that. That’s what had me in pieces, those first few years. There were weeks at a time when I barely spoke, did you know that? My mum remembers days when I didn’t speak or eat or drink, just sat in bed staring at the wall, rocking back and forth. Even on the days when I was _there_ , when I _tried_ — I’d get these waves of terror and run to the bathroom and sit there on the floor with a towel in my mouth so I couldn’t scream. You know about my father, but — _I_ thought about ending it. If I didn’t know it would destroy my mother completely. There was no way out, not without taking my whole family down with me. I _had_ to make myself better. But I couldn’t, not really. So I built something else instead, and let my old, frightened self go.”

Sirius’s arms are tight around him. “And you don’t believe I should love someone brave enough to do that.”

“I don’t believe you should love someone who doesn’t exist,” Remus objects.

Then Sirius’s hands are moving again, touching him, arms and shoulders and face. “You exist,” he murmurs, kissing Remus’s hair, then again, “you exist,” and he tilts his face up to kiss his mouth. After a moment, he pulls back, and whispers raggedly against Remus’s lips, “Tell me to stop.”

“Don’t,” Remus says, but then Sirius is pulling away, releasing him, and he realizes his mistake. “No,” he says sharply, grabbing the front of his robes. “I mean — don’t stop.”

Sirius freezes. His eyes lock on Remus’s, his body very still. “Don’t do this,” he says, voice very low, and he suddenly seems more man than boy, body long and lean, eyes troubled. “Not if it’s just for my sake. Please.”

For an instant, Remus hesitates. It’s all too new; it’s what he _wants_ — he finds himself wanting it powerfully, urgently — but is it smart? Is he caught up in a moment of desperation and desire, doomed to let Sirius down once this spasm of need has passed?

He pauses too long. Sirius turns away, face closing, pulling his robes free of Remus’s slack grip. And suddenly, his doubts vanish. “ _No_ ,” he snarls, and surges after Sirius. He half turns, and Remus catches him by the wrists, pressing him back a step against the dormitory wall. “No,” he says again, and kisses him hungrily. Sirius’s body arches up against his, mouth opening and yielding, and when Remus releases his wrists to cup his face instead, Sirius’s hands are on his chest, skating down his body, catching him by the hips to draw him close. As he does, his own hips buck suddenly upward. Remus feels the press of his erection, and his own throbs in answer, even as he breaks the kiss, gasping, and Sirius releases him abruptly.

“I’m sorry,” he breathes, wide-eyed. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to —”

“Shut up,” says Remus, and kisses him again, even as his hands fumble for Sirius’s belt.

“Let me —” Sirius tries, reaching for Remus’s own, but one of Remus’s hands catches both his wrists again, and pins them against the wall above his head.

“No,” he growls, slower this time, deliberate, pressing his whole body against Sirius’s, and making him gasp. Then his free hand is working Sirius free of his trousers, and moving in long, slow strokes. Sirius gives a muffled cry, bucking against him again, and bites Remus’s lower lip. Remus presses closer.

Afterward, Sirius is loose and boneless against him, half-lidded eyes watching him, warm mouth still seeking his. When Remus shifts and releases his arms, they fall immediately to his shoulders, pulling him closer and deepening the kiss. After a long minute, Sirius pulls back a hairsbreadth. “Let me,” he breathes again, fingers skimming the skin he’s exposed by rucking up Remus’s shirt, and this time, Remus does not protest as his fingers slide deftly over the catch to his trousers, or as Sirius pivots them, pressing him now against the wall, trailing kisses down his belly and sliding his trousers down around his ankles. Remus twines his fingers tightly through Sirius’s hair as Sirius’s mouth slides over him, urging him, asking him. Sirius answers.

\---

When they find James and Peter in the common room, they’re both feeling bright-eyed and boneless, and James takes one look at them and rolls his eyes to the heavens and says, “Thank the _fucking_ lord,” which Sirius takes for approval.

Peter grins and snickers and says, “Finally found your Gryffindor, huh?” and Sirius feels obscurely relieved that not _all_ his secrets are an utter open book.

At his side, Remus still feels like a vessel riddled with fractures, but calmer now, less panicky, and Sirius curls his fingers instinctively in the hair at the back of his neck. This feels good; it feels right. His lip feels ready to curl in a snarl at anyone who looks at them askance. Across the common room, Darius Smoot is playing Exploding Snap, but he doesn’t look up.

Remus, next to him, is wearing a brave, incredulous smile.

And Sirius has done a lot of thinking about Remus, these last few years. He’s thought about all the loads he bears on those bony shoulders; he’s thought about his hands and mouth and hips and how he’d die for him, how he’d jump into a fucking fire if Remus asked him, and about all the places and ways he wants to touch. He’s thought about how Remus is secretly funny, even though no one thinks he is, and about how Remus is not-so-secretly good-looking, which everyone knows but Remus, and about how Remus is probably the best friend Sirius could ever hope to have, outside James, but that’s different, because James is his brother.

He hasn’t thought, _this could work._ He hasn’t thought, _he might like me, too._  

Looking at it now, he’s not sure why. Except that it’s just too good to be true — and maybe it is. Maybe this moment is one bright light on a dark and curving path. Maybe they’ll wake up tomorrow and it will all be too hard, too uncertain, too scary against the great unknown of The Rest of Our Lives. Maybe this night is a split-second of delirium. If it is, it will still be worth it.

But, Sirius thinks, maybe it’s not. And if he’s right — well, if he’s right, and the future is theirs for building, then _I love you, Remus Lupin_ seems as solid block as any on which to begin.

**Author's Note:**

> In this universe, Remus's father doesn't respond well to his son's lycanthropy; he believes Remus should be euthanized and on one occasion tries to kill him himself. Warnings also for alcoholism and general dysfunctional family dynamics.


End file.
